3 Tiny Shifts That Made a Huge Difference in My Business

In this post, I walk you through three tiny changes that made a huge impact on my business.

Pat FlynnJanuary 23, 2017

In one of my all-time favorite books, The One Thing [affiliate link – I make a commission if you buy], authors Gary Kellar and Jay Papasan describe the domino effect, which is what happens when you focus on the small task or project you should be doing that’ll have the biggest impact on everything else that happens ahead of it.

Because a domino can knock over another one that’s 1.5x its size, the effect is massive over a relatively short period of time. If you started with a two-inch domino, for example, the one seventy-three dominoes later would reach from the earth to the moon!

In my experience, sometimes it’s the smallest tweaks or shifts that can make the most dramatic difference in my business over time. Here are three tiny shifts I’ve made that have had a major impact on where I am now.

1. Planning Our Editorial Calendar

No longer are the days where I open up a document to begin writing and ask myself, “What am I going to write about today?” As I mentioned in SPI Podcast Session #215, planning ahead in my editorial calendar has had a massive effect on my productivity and business.

The first benefit is that the hour or two per month to plan ahead is all I need to completely annihilate the wasted time and the frustrations that pop up when I’m in “what am I doing now” mode.

Secondly, the bird’s eye perspective on the calendar allows me to understand the bigger picture. Posts aren’t random anymore. They have a purpose and often tee up bigger things, such as book launches, events, and other promotions. The ROI on planning ahead editorially is incredible, and so if you aren’t planning ahead more than a week or two with the content that you create, I highly recommend you do so.

How far ahead should you plan? Well, it’s up to you. For Team Flynn, we’re already into August and September of this year in terms of where we want to go and what content we want to publish. This allows us, for example, to establish relationships now with potential podcast guests. We can get resources and people in place for some of the bigger ticket items down the road. And, of course, it’s motivating to see all of the amazing stuff that will happen later this year.

2. “I’m Not a Businessman, I’m a Business, Man.”

What a difference a comma makes.

This is a quote from Jay-Z in one of his songs that has stuck with me ever since I heard it. To me, it’s about the difference between someone who is working in a business, and someone who knows they are the business.

There was a point in 2010 when I shared a list of about a dozen new business ideas with Jeremy Frandsen, a mentor at the time from Internet Business Mastery. What he said in response was life changing.

After looking over the list he said, “Pat, these are good ideas, but there’s one thing missing from all of them that’s kind of important.”

“What’s that?” I replied.

“You.”

I didn’t really understand what he meant by that, but after looking puzzled, he kept going:

“The reason Smart Passive Income is so successful is because of you. Your experiences and the personality you put into the brand. It makes all the difference.”

He went on about how I had this superpower to make real connections with people online, and that the list of ideas I had did not allow me to utilize this power.

And he was right.

It was after this conversation with Jeremy that I started to really understand how important it was that I put my personality into my brand at Smart Passive Income. That’s when I started to share more personal information about who I was.

It was also the reason why, in July 2010 when I started my podcast, I decided to have my voiceover guy read a random, fun little fact about me at the top of every episode. That has gone on to become one of the things people talk about the most when I meet listeners in person—they all bring up the one or two they remember that sticks with them most.

This idea of putting more of myself into my brand has allowed me to scale up the relationship building process, and allow others on the other end—the readers, subscribers, listeners and viewers—really get to know, like, and trust me more.

Smart Passive Income isn’t the business. I’m the business, man.

3. “Just-in-Time Learning”

This one I also picked up from Jeremy Frandsen: Just-in-Time Learning.

And this is the small tweak that has made the biggest difference of all.

Back when I started my online business, all the way through 2013, I was a content junkie. I subscribed to dozens of blogs, several dozen newsletters, and about ten different podcasts. I also read a ton of books and watched a lot of YouTube videos on the topic of online business.

I loved to hear about all of the new strategies and tactics I could implement in my business. I loved hearing all of the success stories. I dove into all of the emails I received from my subscriptions looking for examples of how to sell well.

Eventually, I found that I was taking in so much great information, but I was hardly getting anything done with my business. Yes, I made progress in my business because I did block time out for implementation, but when I consider the hours and hours of time spent learnings things I’ve never implemented or didn’t even need to know, it makes me cringe a bit.

When I heard about Just-in-Time Learning, it blew me away. It made so much sense. Here’s how it works. It’s quite simple:

Only allow yourself to consume information about the task and project you’re working on right now. That’s it!

Some of you may be where I was at back then, consuming a ton of information about all different kinds of things that aren’t actually relevant to what your next task is and what’s important right now. When you time-shift your learning to only what’s important for now, you get more done. Period.

The hard part about this is that there’s so much amazing content getting pumped into our attention stream right now. Every social media feed is full of articles we want to read, videos we want to watch, inspiring people we want to online stalk. We don’t want to miss out on it. We have a fear that maybe we’ll never see it again.

Well, that’s where one of my favorite tools, Evernote Web Clipper, comes into play. Instead of missing out on the great information that isn’t relevant to me right now, I save it for later! When I see an article that seems to have gained a lot of momentum on a topic that isn’t relevant to me right now, I use the web clipper to save it for later into a topic-specific folder in Evernote.

So, for example, when I finally decide to create my own event one day, I’ll have a folder in Evernote ready for me so I don’t have to go searching for it later. But, I haven’t read those posts yet, and there’s no need for me to worry about them right now. They aren’t related to what I’m doing.

This strategy has, like I said, opened up several hours of my time for me to dedicate elsewhere, including the implementation of topics that I’m working on right now. Plus, because I’m not getting my attention pulled into topics that aren’t relevant yet, I’m more focused on the work I’m doing, and am able to have better quality and complete tasks even faster.

This small “domino,” along with the other two, have been amazingly beneficial for me, as you can see.

So my challenge to you is this:

What’s one small tweak that you could implement right now that might have a major impact on where you’re headed?

Perhaps it’s one similar to my own, or something completely different. Leave your thoughts below, I’m interested in hearing what you have planned or what you’ve already started doing and how that’s building something much bigger for you.

#3. Prioritizing and Cataloging Information input is a marvelous idea.

It seems like one of the allures of consuming massive amounts of info is becoming the Cliff Claven in the room – some who always has something to pitch in on a wide variety of conversations. But this path can easily lead you towards being the jack of all trades… and the master of nothing.

I’d heard Rich Schefren talk about “in time learning” before but I don’t remember hearing it and thinking about squirreling content away for the future. The discussion was just more about how much more you get out of content you use vs. content you just consume and do nothing with. Having the “Soon” file can give the Cliff Claven in all of us some relief that we’ll become a know-it-all on this topic soon.

One of the other activities that marketers sleep on is the cataloging of stories they use in their marketing to help them make points and to preach and teach values.

So this year I want to get better at thinking specifically about what kind of points I need to make in all the ways I seek to influence my audience and from there, build a list of purposes.

Then… work backwards to find, create, remember, and collect other peoples stories that fit these purposes.

This year I want to commit to working from a story checklist that addresses the virtues of…

===> Decisiveness – acting in spite of a lifetime of procrastination…

===> Stories about investing in yourself vs. blowing every cent you get your hands on…

===> Stories for the guy who thinks he’s too smart for your information…

===> Stories of why they should buy everything you sell…

===> Stories of how to handle feeling overwhelmed with all the content you give…

===> Stories of why even if they haven’t gotten themselves to take action in this past, this is different…

===> Stories of why trying something new once and quitting after it didn’t work perfectly the first time is dumb…

===> Stories about the person who left and then two years later came back and revolutionized their business, recalling all the horror stories they could’ve avoided that happened during their two years away…

===> Stories that can build up your audience’s confidence and courage in the possibility of becoming the next best version of themselves – even if stuff from their past is haunting them…

===> Stories that show the “Human” side of yourself, warts and all…

===> Stories that demonstrate empathy for your perfect prospect – You and I are alike and here’s why…

And more…

You never tell a story without a point and you never make a point without telling a story.

You always want to have easy access to an organized pile of personal narrative stories you can plunder to address these purposes.

But there are so many other stories out there that do a magnificent job of teaching these lessons so you can save and file away articles, rip out pages of books or… just scan/copy the page and file these away as well.

Cataloging your stories will massively contribute to your speed.

It will help you make points exactly like you want to, instead of butchering a story you only kinda remember.

This is also a way to make sure all of your details, years, exact amounts, etc. stay accurate in the re-tellings of them over the years.

Thank you Pat for reminding me of a massive element of my business I need to continually be working on and refining. 🙂

Over the last few days I have read a lot of amazing articles from yourself and Ramit Sethi. Listened to a few episodes of the the SPI Podcast, just looking for inspiration, motivation and ideas to kick-start my new online business.
I now realise that I haven’t implemented anything in the last 4 days – yet am still super excited about the new business!

Just a little bit too much “productive procrastination” on my part. Time to make start making things happen as soon as I get home from work tonight.

I recall Jay Z rapping that line a while back. I went over the top with it when I created Blogging From Paradise, pasting my brand logo on every eBook and audio cover and having my smiling kisser on my blog logo. I also create tons of videos and snap selfies like mad. And of course, I work my travel stories into many blog posts.

Humans connect with….humans. I let my personality bleed through my brand and I landed features on top blogs not too long after that shift.

Excellent article Pat ! I totally vouch for ‘Just In-Time Learning’ – There are numerous times where we would have just in need of some information to apply but whatever we learnt earlier might not be handy or applicable. That’s when the JIT plays such as big role. Learn when it’s needed and apply. Because learning + applying makes it’s a real learning experience. Not just learning.

I never stop saying THANK YOU to you Pat because you have been an inspiration to me and thousands of others since so many years. Keep up the great work !

You’ve asked the wrong and right question Pat.
It’s wrong, because if we answer it, we can’t share such awesome stories like you.
It’s right, because it’s always good to ponder if we could do something better.
One more remark: at least two (if not 3, how did you get an idea of content calendar?) of your ideas came from external sources. That’s why it’s important to have mentors, accountability partners and masterminds.
If I KNEW what TINY tweak would have a major impact, I would have done it years ago, wouldn’t I?

With a benefit of hindsight I see that my tiny tweak was networking: commenting on 1 blog post a day; visiting FB group once a day.
When I started, it was exclusively solo venture. When I started connecting with others, the results were expotential.
I was active in your Pat’s 1st Kindle book and one guy re-made my ugly covers. The first launch with a new cover brought more sales in a month than I had in 5 previous months.
Another guy from the group helped me with edition and marketing book #5. It became my first bestseller.
I connected with Steve Scott and he borrowed me his list a few times. It always had a major impact.
I got featured on blogs, on Forbes, got interviews on podcasts all because of networking.

That’s awesome, Michal! And thanks for the question–I’d recommend you check out SPI Session 215. In it, I talk to Janna, my managing editor, who was the mastermind behind the editorial/content calendar. Without her, I’d be lost!

Chad R. Allen

Love the domino imagery! I need to get better at planning my big launches/initiatives early in the year and then wrapping an editorial calendar around those. Thanks for the nudge!

Hello.really useful article.Actually,I just started blogging few days ago.My blog concept is to publish daily articles that help everyone to improve ! You can watch it here http://www.365improvement.com I would be really glad if you can give me a feedback or anyone !

“Planning my editorial calendar” would definitely help me right now. I haven’t been writing nearly as much as I should have due to work circumstances and such, but definitely knowing about what I want to write will be really helpful and allow me to get into the mindset much easier than thinking about what I’m going to write.

Hey Pat!
Great points… Your reminder of Just-In-Time Learning is exactly what I needed. There are definitely a few points in the year when I fall into “sponge-mode”, absorbing all that I can. I’m always glad when something pulls me back out into JITL!

The two tweaks that are building momentum in my life right now are: (1) daily meditation and (2) visualization + law of attraction. What’s your experience with one or both of these?

Best,
Ray
p.s. I’m loving the look of your new site design! Your “Will It Fly” Companion Course is great. Sad I couldn’t make it to Converted 2016 this year to see you speak… will catch you at the next event!

Just in time learning, that’s amazing. I can really identify myself with what you wrote. I consume too much information that is not really relevant to me right now. That will help me a lot, Thank you, Pat!

Well, I’m starting my first business (online) as a Consciousness Coach. For a while, I’ve been wandering how do I start blogging, what should my blogs contain, how should I structure it? Then I decided to visit your website. I’ve been following you since May, last year and of course a big fan of yours!
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Now, I’ve 3 observations-
1. I see you’ve shared more of your personal experiences than facts and statistics.
2. Your content touches the heart rather than the brain.
3. You were very easy to yourself while writing the post.
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Here are the three things I’ve learnt about blogging-
1. A blog is different than an online article.
2. A blog is more like a public monologue but precise and direct.
3. I can be less difficult to myself while writing a blog.
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**Here’s the tiny shift that I’m making in my business- from now on I’ll secure a period of 2 hours everyday just to write my next blog post. 🙂 **
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Thanks a lot Pat. Hope your progress.
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I’ve recently switched to just-in-time learning, too! It is hard to get over the FOMO, but the lack of progress was more motivating than FOMO. Thanks to the “create before consume” approach, I am now a week or more ahead of my content creation.

Great tips! Ironic tho- I think the last one is the best, even though by reading this post, I’m learning fantastic stuff that has nothing to do with the current project at hand. Yes, I’m procrastinating. So thanks for motivating me to get back to work 🙂

I’ve never heard the expression “just in time learning” but it is something I have been doing for nearly two years now and I have found it’s not just increased my productivity time but also stopped me questioning what I am doing. I’d read a new angle or new way to make money online and then worry that my time would be better spent on that instead or what I was doing was wrong. I was far more successful when I blanked out that noise and put faith in myself.

On the downside, it means this is the first time I have read one of your blog posts that isn’t directly related to what I’m doing in a long time 🙁

Great Article! I have actually been experimenting with a crowdfunding consignment platform called Kickfurther, that just made a small change to only funding brands that are 100% purchase order backed. I think this will be the small change to get me back into the platform. But my question is, does anyone have experience with either Kickfurther or other forms of P.O crowdfunding? I haven’t been into this very long but have seen the huge returns. Any tips?

Hi Pat, great article. I can really relate to the ‘content junkie’ issue. It’s so easy to get almost paralysed by the sheer number of techniques people are talking about. I really liked this statement from Jimmy D. Brown: “It is better to MASTER one source of traffic than to be MEDIOCRE or MISERABLE at many sources of traffic”. Now I just focus on my one main technique, and aim to master it. Thanks for the article!

I love the tip about JIT learning. I was the same way when starting out with my business (until just recently…). Now, I drop all irrelevant information until it is something that I need to know about. It has definitely saved me many hours which I have been able to put into producing additional revenue for me and my business.

Hi Pat,
I think I fall into the content junkie stage at this moment in time. So after listening to your latest podcast (SPI 251) and this blog article the one thing I could probably do right away are to learn just in time. For the past week I’ve also been using Pomodoro and that has been really effective in keeping me on task.

I read this line in article “I had this superpower to make real connections with people online, and that the list of ideas I had did not allow me to utilize this power” i want to know about how you can manage all the relation on online and real life. no doubt about your personality but i’m eagerly waiting to know abcout how can do and manage all this. please share when you find space for this.

Hi David. That’s a good question. The answer, simply, is that you make the time. Money in business is in the people who you serve, and without making the time to build those relationships, you’re not going to grow your business. Having time saving tools and apps to work with also helps immensely. Check out https://www.smartpassiveincome.com/a-typical-day-and-the-productivity-tools-i-use/. Being more productive and efficient with my time definitely gives me more time to build the relationships I want.

I also have an annual content calendar with key dates in it such as Black Friday, my business birthday, social media / freelancer day, bank holidays, dates my affiliates are going to raise their prices (so I can promote) and other key dates. This means I can prepare and create social media, blog and newsletter content the month before and schedule it in advance through Convertkit, Hootsuite and Tweetdeck depending where I want to promote it.

I also have a ‘just in time’ place but I use Pinterest boards instead of Evernote. The added benefit of this is that I can share some of the boards with my followers so they can gain from the information I’m curating for myself. Some boards are private but most are not. I think I heard the ‘just in time’ tip from Tim Ferris but it has come in very handy as I just love sucking up information and could spend hours reading and learning – like now!

Another couple of things that have changed the way I work (which also came from Tim Ferris) are applying the Pareto Principle and Parkinson’s Law. So I now focus and work solidly to get my to-do list done by lunchtime then I use the rest of the day for more personal stuff such as hairdresser/doctors appts, learning languages, going to the gym, yoga etc. I also regularly look to identify which 20% of my marketing/lead magnets/traffic/products/affiliates etc are resulting in 80% of my leads and sales.

One of the mistakes I made was my niche product choice. I put a lot of effort getting http://thebeststudfinder.com rated on Google. But not a lot of people really buy stud finders and once they do the price point is fairly low. So I sell a lot of stud finders through Amazon, but just don’t make much money. My newer niche choices have had more research put into them and higher price points. Everything is slowly growing.

I too suffered at one point from content consumption overload. I found I was spending so much time consuming other peoples content, podcast episodes, reading blogs, checking other articles on Flipboard, I wasn’t doing any work on ‘the biz’. It was during a forum discussion with the ‘Duckmeister’ Chris Ducker, he asked me the question, ‘so what have you created this month?’

I have found planning and executing is now key. Especially the executing part!

I now have an editorial calendar.
I am working on me being the business, man.
Also I have seen the JIT approach to training in the past and have until reading this article, not thought about it as a suitble way to train until now.

Thanks for writing this, Pat

By JT Rogers

“just-in-time” learning has been the hardest but most practical habit I’ve been working on. It has improved my productivity. It’s super hard to say no to so much great content. I’ve had to unsubscribe to a hand full of podcasts and delete interesting emails before reading them because they are not important for the project I’m working on but it’s given me a few more hours of time in my day to work on my project at hand.

Sumit Sharma

Well you are absolutely right! 3 tiny shifts made a huge difference. I am working on my niche blog https://www.ignoustudentzone.in. I was trying to rank it in google very hard. But now, I understand it’s the reader who makes the difference in ranking your blog.